UN Women Transparency Portal

Region:Asia Pacific Current UN Women Plan Period Afghanisthan:2018-2022

World Bank Income Classification:Low Income

Least Developed Country:Yes

Gender Inequality Index:0.575

Gender Development Index:0.723

Population:209,497,025 Male:19,976,265 (9.5%) Female:189,520,760 (90.5%)

Disclaimer

outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.6

Supportive policy environment in place to ensure gender-responsive localization and effective monitoring of the SDGs

UN Women has been closely working with the Ethiopian Statistical Service (ESS) to ensure a supportive policy environment since 2020. During the reporting period, the third national strategy for the development of statistics with a gender perspective and the five-year sectoral plan for ESS were developed with support from UN Women. The adoption of a gender-responsive National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) III and ESS five-years sector plan will fill the gap in creating a supportive policy environment for gender statistics until the national statistical act is revised and a policy framework on gender statistics is adopted by ESS. The government restructuring, that took place in October 2021, highly impacted the revision of the statistical act as the mandate of ESS has been diminished. UN Women will continue to engage with ESS under the Ministry of Planning and Development to ensure workflow under the new mandate and achieve the long-term goal of putting in place a supportive policy environment for gender statistics.

outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.7

Women are promoted as leaders in gender sensitive political institutions

During the Strategic Note implementation, UN Women significantly contributed to the achievement of this outcome. Currently, women hold 41.49 % seats (181 out of 425 seats) in the Parliament after the 6th General Election held on June 2021. With UN Women support, the capacity of 380 women members and female candidates drawn from political parties running at national and regional level was enhanced on critical skills of political empowerment including public speaking, campaigning, political leadership, voter outreach and fundraising to ensure that women candidates have enhanced capacity to compete on a more equal standing with men. 1,300 women candidates (around 70% of total candidates), drawn from all political parties running for federal parliament and regional council increased their knowledge on gender equality and electoral normative frameworks on women’s participation in public and political life. UN Women tailored training has equipped women leaders with the skills to move into elected positions. This will not only create space for other women to gain much needed experience, but also increase their legitimacy and standing within political structures. The first ever inter-party debate on gender equality and commitment of political parties ahead of the 6th General Election was transmitted on main TV station called Fana TV with the support of the Embassy of Sweden and in collaboration with Ethiopian Women Rights Advocates (EWRA). The debate brought together four main political parties: Prosperity Party, Ethiopian Citizen's for Social Justice Party (ECSJ), Afar People's party (APP) and National Movement of Amhara Party (NAMA) running at regional and national levels. The debate provided an opportunity for the public to get an insight into the debating political parties party programs and policies regarding commitments on the promotion of gender equality in Ethiopia [1]. A national dialogue forum was also held among women candidates and members of political parties to create a platform for women politicians to come together to discuss challenges and opportunities in promoting gender equality as a political agenda and to discuss on how to strengthen women politicians’ council (initiated in 2020). Scaling up on previous capacity building since 2019, UN Women supported NEBE in launching a Female Political Party Members Joint Council on in Ethiopia. In line with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed among the members, the council is expected to promote women’s leadership at all levels, advocate for gender policies, and promote and work towards cross-party collaboration on issues concerning women rights and politicians including strive to eliminate political pressure, violence, and discrimination against women political party members. UN Women will continue to support the council through civil society to promote women political participation in Ethiopia. UN Women has been providing strategic support to the House of Peoples’ Representative’s (HoPR) (Parliament) and its Secretariat to ensure the institution is gender sensitive in exercising its representative, legislative and oversight function. Support is provided to the HoPR and its Secretariat in undertaking a gender audit facilitating stock taking of the journey that the current Parliament took in terms of its gender focused work and gender mainstreaming efforts in its mechanism and structures. The audit report will be used for further intervention in the Parliament with new parliamentarians following the 6th General Election. Building on teams’ comparative advantage, UN Women National Planning and Women in Leadership and Governance teams, enhanced capacity of 61 staff (24 female and 37 male) of the Secretariat of the HoPR to plan and budget from a gender perspective. UN Women will follow up with the Secretariat and HoPR practices gender responsive budgeting principles while delivering on the mandate of the House. UN Women contributed to promoting electoral frameworks to be gender responsive in light of the 6th General Election. To this effect, the capacity of key electoral stakeholders including, electoral management body staff, accredited CSOs, medias and media monitoring bodies, national human rights institutions, male and female political party members has been built on how to mainstream gender in their electoral engagement [2]. A media campaign was also conducted through a launch of a well-received collaborative music video, ‘Yehager Kasma’ (roughly translated as Pillar of the Nation), featuring several prominent Ethiopian artists encouraging the participation of women in the elections. In addition, 24 public media outreach programmes were conducted, in collaboration with the EHRC and local NEWA, promoting women participation in politics as votes, candidates, members of political and as members of electoral management bodies (MBs). The public outreach programme was able to reach a wide audience, in four local languages, and a sign language and aired on Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, with nationwide reach. To advance evidence driven data, UN Women conducted a “Rapid Assessment on Violence Against Women during Elections (VAWE)”, in collaboration with EHRC. Capacitated members of NEBE and CSOs on gender inclusive voter education significantly cascaded the initiative to eight local FM radio stations, 51 community radios and 4 regional TVs, conducted a roadshow on voter education in 197 woredas and two federal cities, 11 women election literacy trainings in six regions and a consultative meeting with 43 religious leaders and community elders in four regions in Ethiopia. [1] Please see link for debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DphQ3ZGRTtM [2] https://africa.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/11/un-women-in-ethiopia-supports-electoral-cycles

outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_1.8

Gender statistics are accessible to all users (including government, civil society, academia, and private sector) and can be analyzed to inform research, advocacy, policies and programmes and promote accountability.

During the implementation of the Strategic Note, UN Women contributed to the increased accessibility of gender statistics among diverse users. UN Women produced and disseminated gender statistics reports and publications on GEWE issues to sector ministries and CSO organizations and using various platforms to inform research, advocacy, policies and programmes and promote accountability. UN Women, under the pilot project on citizen-generated data (CGD) with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), enhanced continuous engagement among producers and users of data improving the accessibility of data as it creates transparency on the availability and existing demand of gender data. This was done through several convened user-producer dialogue platforms, including four user-producer workshops on SDGs and CGD and one seminar on Gender Statistics with Ethiopian Statistics Association and ESS bringing together users and producers of gender statistics from ESS, sector ministries and CSOs in Amhara regional state and federal level. Furthermore, the platforms have been used to present research and studies conducted on gender statistics. UN Women will continue its close collaboration with ESS, ESA and CSOs to improve the data flow between data producers and users. A dashboard on SDGs and National Development Plans has been set up in Planning and Development Ministry (formerly, Planning and Development Commission) to improve accessibility of data, following the process started in 2019 in collaboration with the SDG Centre for Africa and UN Women. In 2021, the dashboard been fully operational after the final approval by Ethiopia Information Network Security Agency. The dashboard, which uses the Ten Years Development Plan aligned to the SDG indicators as a bases for reporting, will increase the availability and accessibility of regular and comparable data on statistics.

outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_2.1

Women sustainable livelihoods enhanced by gender-responsive services and access and control over means of production and resources.

Despite the profound pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, UN Women continued to propel improvements in women’s income, access to decent work and economic autonomy. UN Women collaborated with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) , Agricultural Transformation Agency and Gender Working Groups, comprised of MoA, gender focal persons of different directorates and a gender expert seconded to the Ministry, supported the process to improve gender responsive public services. Accordingly, the Agricultural and Rural Development draft policy has been strengthened to be more gender responsive and ensure women’s participation and their land rights and access to agricultural technologies. The capacity on gender mainstreaming, gender responsive planning and service delivery of gender coordinators and experts from MoA and its affiliated institutions (Agriculture Transformation Institute, Cooperatives Commission) and advisors to the Minister and State Ministers, Plan Director, female Directors at the MoA has been strengthened directly contributing to meaningful mainstreaming of gender into their work to respond to women's challenges in accessing and benefiting from productive resources and services. Moreover, a comprehensive training of trainers (ToT) manual on gender mainstreaming in agriculture consisting of 18 modules has been developed with support of UN Women. In addition, to scale up evidence driven data, research on “Actual Benefits of Land Registration and Certification for Women: Beyond the numbers” has been conducted in collaboration with the MoA to inform better benefits from the land certification process by the women. UN Women in collaboration with different stakeholders and implementing partners, enhanced gender responsive services provision, access to and control over means of production and resources by women and female youth in Ethiopia contributing to women’s sustainable livelihoods. UN Women targeted interventions contributed to increased access to and control over productive resources such as land, climate responsive agricultural inputs, technologies/tools and business development services, finances, market opportunities and insurance coverage. Promotion of drought resistant and early maturing seed and breed varieties through climate smart agriculture and agribusiness project, enabled 634 women in agribusiness to improve productivity in a changing climate. Through technical support provided by Adami Tullu and Melkassa agricultural research centers, provision of improved technologies and practices such as improved fodder production and livestock feeding practice and training videos content production on climate smart agriculture and agribusiness has been prepared to be used for agriculture extension service provision for women farmers. With the support of UN Women, women -led and women -owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) were sustained in challenging times of COVID 19 continuous outbreak and escalating conflict in Ethiopia. Livelihood of women and families improved so resilience and employment opportunities. UN Women in partnership with government, private sector and CSOs have been improving gender responsive public services that support resilience of women in business form different natural and manmade shocks in Ethiopia. In response to climate change, UN Women and SoS Sahel Ethiopia partnered with Nyala insurance and Metemamen microfinance to implement multi-peril crop insurance services. Accordingly, farmers are buying 25% premium for crop failure caused by natural disaster or yield reduction compensation.

outcome XM-DAC-41146-ETH_D_3.1

An enabling legislation and policy environment in line with international standards on EVAWG and other forms of discrimination is in place and translated into action

This outcome was not achieved in the reporting period. However, notable progress has been made this year in terms of promoting the adoption, revision and implementation of legislations and policies from women’s rights perspective. ECO has contributed to this result through conducting evidence-based studies and various consultations with key stakeholders on the need for revision of discriminatory laws and adoption of favorable laws and policies on VAWG. In particular, the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MOWSA) with the support of ECO, has initiated the development of a comprehensive national Anti-GBV policy which aims to respond to the gap in the legal framework on VAWG. ECO has supported the preparation of a position paper that argues for the need to adopt this policy as well as a draft policy is currently available for further consultations with relevant stakeholders and will be submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval. ECO, together with MOWSA, has coordinated stakeholders' review of the Ethiopian Criminal procedure Code from a gender perspective and submitted compiled inputs to the parliament. The multi-year efforts on the adoption of family law in Somali and Afar regions have also resulted in gaining some level of consensus among the community and decision makers on the importance of adopting the law while providing due respect to the regional context and religious practices. To be able to coordinate the various efforts towards the adoption of regional Family Law, the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MoWSA) established an expert group representing various institutions, including UN Women. In order to address the gaps in the availability and use of administrative data on VAWG, ECO in partnership with the Ministry of Justice has ensured the development of a criminal proceeding Information Management System (MIS) that focuses on recording and analyzing administrative date on criminal cases including VAWG cases. Furthermore, ECO through its support to Setaweet is further collecting and analyzing administrative data from Police departments in order to identify gaps and offer recommendations to improve data collection by police officers in relation to gender-based violence. In addition, ECO has contributed to the improvement of quality and accessibility of justice services for women and girls through the establishment of legal aid centers in Afar and Somali regions as well as strengthening of one-stop centers in Gambela and Somali regions.

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